In the art of well boring, a borehole is drilled into the earth through the oil or gas producing subterranean formation or, for some purposes, through a water bearing formation or a formation into which water or gas or other liquids are to be injected.
Completion of a well may be carried out in a number of ways dependent upon the nature of the formation of interest. In particular, it is known to arrange a casing into the wellbore to control formation elements. Once installed into the wellbore, the casing is then perforated in a plurality of areas for allowing the passage of oil and/or gas from the formation into the casing.
When the casing suffers damage, corrosion or leaks, metal patches may be used to repair the casing and enable production to be improved. Similarly, in depleted wells nearing the end of viable production, a metal patch may be used to seal some of the perforations of the casing to improve the recovery of oil and/or gas. In some cases, such sealing may be the only economic means of safely returning the well to production.
Two main techniques are known to apply a metal patch on a casing arranged in a wellbore: mechanical expansion and hydraulic pressure. An example of mechanical expansion is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,668,930 and consists in arranging a coiled tubing into the casing then using a tool for pressing the coiled tubing against an area of the casing in order to create a patch on said area. An example of solution using hydraulic pressure is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,775,894 and consists in loading a coiled tubing into a delivery tool comprising a plunger then applying hydraulic pressure for pushing the plunger against the coiled tubing in order to release the coiled tubing into the casing and therefore sealing the openings of the casing in the corresponding area. The utilization of such mechanical or hydraulic pressure tools is complex, time-consuming and costly. Moreover, such methods of sealing openings may be unreliable as the pressure may not be sufficient to solidly fix the patch and properly seal the openings.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved method and system for efficiently, rapidly, easily and effectively sealing an opening of a equipment arranged in a wellbore of a subterranean formation in order to improve the recovery of formation fluids and/or gases. Another and further object of the present invention is to provide an improved method and system for sealing a tube arranged in a wellbore. Another and further object of the present invention is to provide an improved method and device for sealing a perforation of a metallic casing arranged in a wellbore.